Mallorca Holiday 6th May 2015 : Port de Pollenca and Boquer Valley

Mallorca Holiday 6th May 2015 : Port de Pollenca and Boquer Valley

On the last day of our holiday we had to reserve some time for packing our bags and settling up with the hotel. The best way I could think of to spend a morning was to walk along the Boquer valley. I started off with a walk half way around La Gola and then headed up the road by the side of the torrent and on to the circular bypass.  The mountain side of this road has a lot of fields and big areas of rough land in front of villas. It was in front of one of these that I came across a  couple who were scouring a patch of dry, stony land I had looked at many times looking for Stone Curlews. I got into conversation with them and they had been told  by someone the night before that it was easy to see Stone Curlews here and that they couldn’t fail to see them. I told them that I had looked in vain several times in the last couple of weeks and they had been scouring the area for the last fifteen minutes with no luck so we had a chat about other birding stuff and off they went. I was about to change their luck, however.

Because their acquaintance had told them he had seen Stone Curlews in this plot of land just the day before I thought I would get my scope out and have a closer look. Despite seeing no signs at all in my binoculars,  it only took me a minute or so to find one sitting, probably on a nest. I called the couple back from the next patch of land they had moved on to and they got their scope out. We both got nice digiscoped pictures of the bird on our phones and as an added bonus another bird showed itself.  This had been a bird they were desperate to see and had not managed to see yet. They had to fly home the next day, like us, so it was probably their last chance to get the “tick”. It’s always nice to put someone on to a bird and it is that kind of mutual help that creates the birding fraternity;  it makes up for the few prats you meet.

I eventually dragged myself away from the Stone Curlews and got up to Casa Boquer. At the house it elf there was good action. Goldfinch and Greenfinch were busy. A Woodchat Shrike posed on a wire and a male Blue Rock Thrush was walking along one of the lower paths dropping down occasionally for a morsel. It showed well in the brilliant light. A Serin dashed from tree to tree calling and a Pied Flycatcher made a  brief appearance.

Before we came on holiday I had checked with the birding tour company Heatherlea asking them if it was possible to join one of their groups for the odd day. I had noticed that they had a tour in Mallorca starting just before we left so I emailed the, asking if I could tag along – for a fee of course. I received what I to to be a rather haughty email saying that t they were always full and they could not facilitate me at all. I did have their itinerary but it was a little vague and it wasn’t sure what order sites would be visited in. I had rather hoped that I might tag along for Lluc or Cuber. Anyway it  was much to my amusement that who should appear but a dozen pensioners and two group leaders  it was the Heatherlea  group.

As it happens I was glad that I hadn’t spent good money on them and it was a good warning of what doing a group birding tour is like. It was a bit like our birding group but with the age group older and the eccentricities on steroids. Anyway, it did prove useful as I eavesdropped on them and it did help me confirm an Osprey and a pair of Buzzards. We sort of leapfrogged each other for the morning sopping sightings ( or more accurately lack of sightings). We all searched high and low for warblers but apart from Sardinian Warblers nothing was to be found. At the end of the valley I stood for about half an hour. Apart from a couple of Eleonora’s Falcons I didn’t see any other raptors. The Heatherlea group saw a Booted Eagle being chased by a pair of Ravens but I missed that !

I eventually headed back down the Valley and I spoke to several people all of whom were reporting a quiet morning. At one point I was sure I had seen a warbler behaving quite differently to a Sardinian Warbler and I spent about fifteen minutes tracking it and getting glimpses of it now and again before it just vanished. What had attracted me was that it looked like a Sardinian Warbler but had a much lighter head. It wasn’t singing and was so furtive that I had to concede that although I wanted it to be a Balearic Warbler it could just as easily have been a female Sardinian.

After I lost track of it I just  decided to head back and get a cold drink. Just past the Casa Boquer I got  an unexpected surprise when I got a last “holiday tick”  – a Spotted Flycatcher, perched on almost the same branch as the Pied Flycatcher we had seen on our very first visit to the Bower of of this holiday. This made our holiday list up to ninety-one species, twelve of which were “life ticks” It may have been a disappointing migration season but it didn’t feel like a disappointment and the twelve days of birding had just flown by. Try again next year ? Who know. I need to start working on Anne again soon.

Bird Sightings : Port de Pollenca Environs

Bird Sightings : Boquer Valley

Cliick here for route taken to Boquer Valley and back 150506
Activity type: walking
Description: –
Total distance: 5.43 km (3.4 mi)
Recorded: 06/05/2015 08:46